Pedigree Chart for Doug Mendola
My father's ancestors on his father's side all come from Sicily, and so there was no confusion about their country of origin. On the other hand, on his mother's side a lot of research was required to confirm European countries of origin. These ancestors lived in New Jersey for many generations. Also, having a common surname, Smith, made the task more difficult. It was important for the story to quickly distinguish the ancestors of Doug's maternal grandfather and grandmother. The was done with blue and pink overlay boxes. My father liked this design and referred to the 'blue shirt' team, and 'pink shirt' team, respectively. However, we needed to go back more than his 3rd great-grandparents to find countries of origin. So, pedigree charts were made for both of his maternal grandparents (below).
Pedigree Chart for Doug's Grandmother, Amy Bryan
Finally, after going back to Amy Bryan's 4th great-grandparents (Doug's 6th great-grandparents), European countries of origin could be determined for the majority of ancestors. I used flag icons to depict the countries confirmed for each generation with flag size very roughly proportional to the number of ancestors. Thus we can see that Amy Bryan's ancestors hail from Germany, The Netherlands. Switzerland, England, Norway, and Denmark!
Pedigree Chart for Doug's Grandfather, David C. Smith
In comparison to Amy Bryan, much less information has been discovered for Doug's maternal grand father, David C. Smith. So far, a few ancestors have been traced successfully to England and Germany.
Relationship Chart for Amy Bryan and David C. Smith
A "fun fact" discovered by my father's research is a relationship between his maternal grandparents. They are 5th cousins! What this means is that they share one pair of 4th great-grandparents - Jacob Woolever and Maria Schwitzeler. Jacob and Maria had two daughters. Amy descends from Anna Woolever, while David descends from Elizabeth Woolever. Pretty cool, yes?